Keep Your WordPress Site Secure: Use Strong Passwords!

Posted by Christina Hills | Articles | 19

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One thing you need to do when you have a WordPress site, is keep it secure. The best way to keep it secure is to have strong passwords!

The second way to keep it secure is to prevent hackers from trying to login to your site. So instead of the login name ‘admin’, create a different login name, and remove the ‘admin’ login name. But no matter what you do, you must always keep a backup copy of your site.

Here is a video to show you how to create a different admin login (this video assumes you already have a WordPress site)

The Backup Plugin
This is by far the best way to backup a WordPress Site (from iThemes) My favorite plugin is one from iThemes called: Backup Buddy.
http://www.christinasresources.com/backupbuddy

WP Backup Plugin
This free Plugin allows you to backup your core WordPress database tables easily.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/
(Note: This plugin does not backup uploaded images or your theme files.)

Here are some more plugins to help keep your site secure, check them out and see which one works well for you:

Secure WordPress Plugin
Secure WordPress beefs up the security of your WordPress installation by removing error information on login pages, adds index.html to plugin directories, hides the WordPress version and much more.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/secure-wordpress/

Login Lockdown
Helps prevent hacker attacks by limiting the number of bad login attempts you can have
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/login-lockdown/

Better WordPress Security
An all in one plugin to keep your site secure.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/better-wp-security/

You might experience problems if you install and activate similar plugins at the same time as some features may overwrap, so my advice is to stick with one plugin to handle certain tasks.

Share your favorite security tips below.

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About The Author

Christina Hills

Christina Hills helps entrepreneurs set up their websites using WordPress without having to rely on a webmaster or any tech people. Her trainings are fun and she makes it easy! Get the free PDF "The Do-It-Yourself Website Creation Checklist" Report Here

19 Comments

Lynette on April 16, 2013 at 4:52 pm

Thanks for this video. My website was hacked because of admin and it was a lot of trouble getting into it. I’m going to my site now and change my log in.
- Christina Hills on April 16, 2013 at 5:04 pm
  
  Lynette,
  
  getting rid of the admin login is one of the first things I do
Ros on April 16, 2013 at 5:06 pm

Hi Christina, thanks for your wonderful information. I have tried to change my admin user name following your advice but wordpress wont accept the same email address as I used for the original setup. It comes up with the prompt – ERROR: This email is already registered, please choose another one.
If you have time, could you advise me on what to do. I don’t particularly want to create another email address.
Warmest Regards Ros
- Christina Hills on April 16, 2013 at 5:08 pm
  
  Ros,
  
  You need another email address to follow the instructions above. Go ahead and get a free gmail account and use that.
  (You should have a gmail account anyways, as it’s important to have an account as your business grows)
  Once you delete the old admin user, you can switch your email back to your favorite one.
  - Ros on April 16, 2013 at 5:11 pm
    
    Thanks Christina. Wow that was fast! Will do! Thanks so very much!
Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist on April 16, 2013 at 6:00 pm

Thanks Christina, great advice! I do have a user name and backups in place but will go and change the password and look into some of the security plus-ins you mention
Trudy
- Christina Hills on April 16, 2013 at 6:18 pm
  
  Trudy,
  
  a strong password is the best defense! Use odd characters and Upper cases in your passwords
Angelika on April 16, 2013 at 6:19 pm

Thanks, Christina.
We had a horrific storm just about 30 Minutes into our call today….sorry I had no internet connection to come back in..

Quick question: Can I have 2 administrators? I may want to allow my website techie VA have access to help me with some issues on my site. Can I give her permission as a second administrator?

Thanks for your amazing dedication to your students…I feel blessed to have you as my teacher:-)

Much Love,

Angelika
- Christina Hills on April 16, 2013 at 6:23 pm
  
  Yes, you can!
  
  Give your assistants their own admin logins. That’s the best way to do it
Caroline J on April 16, 2013 at 11:07 pm

Christina – I have a question about the thumbnail images I have on my site.
I’ve just gone through your instructions on a test site, assigned a new username, password and email. How can I get a thumbnail image assigned to the new user?
- Christina Hills on April 17, 2013 at 4:26 am
  
  Caroline,
  
  Go to your gravatar.com account and add in the second email address. You can even have a different picture associated with your WordPress new user if you want. Watch this video I did on getting a gravatar https://websitecreationworkshop.com/wordpress-tips/what-is-a-gravatar-picture/
  
  However I see that you already have a gravatar, so you may not need to watch that video. Try it out, and when you go inside your WordPress admin, you will see your new user has a gravatar image.
  🙂
Paula on April 17, 2013 at 5:26 am

Thanks, Christina. A big help. Going to go do it right now. So appreciate your clear directions.
- Christina Hills on April 17, 2013 at 5:27 am
  
  Paula,
  
  awesome!
  and while you are at it, go get yourself a gravatar account!
jessica on April 17, 2013 at 10:03 am

As someone who as been hacked on numerous sites, numerous times over the past 2 months, my website programmer who is a techie geek goddess, was able to pinpoint the exact way the hackers came in, and it all stemmed from the change in how Bluehost provides it’s security. She noticed a pattern when multiple clients had wordpress sites hacked and were all on Bluehost, not to mention the non-wordpress sites that were hacked because they were also on Bluehost and shared the same server as the wordress site users. So also be aware to the security of your hosting company. I have happily moved on from Bluehost to a company that cares about the security of its clients. Thanks for the tips here Christina
- Christina Hills on April 17, 2013 at 10:06 am
  
  Jessica,
  Thanks for your comments.
  I know that Bluehost did get attacked sometime back, but I spoke with them a couple of days ago about the security measures that they have put in since then. All shared hosting is vunerable. I just wanted to help out folks to take the first step in securing their WordPress sites.
Connie Bynum on April 18, 2013 at 12:08 pm

Christina, Thank you so much for this video. I just went to make the changes and noticed an unknown admin listed. I had just looked at this a few weeks ago and I only had myself listed as an admin so this was new. Nothing seems added or deleted in my site. Hopefully just deleting this person will help. I change the admin name and my password to a very strong password.
- Christina Hills on April 23, 2013 at 12:57 pm
  
  Good move
Lorenzo on May 5, 2013 at 2:46 pm

I use Limit Login Attempts which is similar to Login Lockdown. Another tip is to use a password manager like 1Password or LassPass.
- Christina Hills on May 5, 2013 at 8:10 pm
  
  Thanks for sharing the great tips!

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